It happens to the best of us. You’re rolling along on your new diet and exercise plan and you’re starting to see results. You’re pumped, you’re on top of the world and then bang – an injury. At this point, you’ve got two main choices. You can give up, convinced that your body simply was not meant to be thin or healthy, or you can accept the setback and find ways to work around it until you’re healed.
Depending on the type of injury that you have, there are still many ways that you can keep fit until you recover. Granted, there are a few, such as a broken leg, that may incapacitate you entirely, but that doesn’t mean that you have to give up on weight loss. You just need to find ways to restructure your plan until you’re ready to get back into action.
First and foremost, if you have a serious injury your body is going to need time and fuel to recover. If you are on a starvation or extreme diet, your body may not be getting the nutrients it needs to heal. Make sure that you tell your doctor how many calories you are consuming and see what they recommend. If it is a matter of life or weight, you may need to put off losing more weight for the time being. In the case of a broken bone, if you don’t have enough nutrition you could actually delay the healing process, which will put you back more than a few steps on your diet.
Since you will not be as active, it is important to revisit your caloric intake, within reason. If you do feel the need to cut back on your calories, make sure that you are taking a multi-vitamin supplement and again, consult with your doctor before starting. This is also a great time to ask them about your physical therapy options. In many cases, your insurance coverage may cover this therapy and you can use it to keep on track towards getting fit.
It is also important to make sure that you find some way to keep your heart healthy during your convalescence. With a serious injury, cardio may be out of the question, but there may be some exercises that you can still do. For example, if a leg is out of commission, try lifting weights with your arms. Find little ways to work around your injury, while still giving yourself time to heal. If you have a broken arm, try a spinning class. There are lots of little ways that you can keep fit, even while recovering from an injury.
Last but not least, you can use your recovery time to figure out what went wrong. Not all injuries can be prevented, but most can. See if you need to increase your amount of stretching before your workout or stop doing whatever it was that caused the injury in the first place.
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Originally posted 2008-09-02 05:55:35. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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7 comments ↓
[...] Kevin of Weight Ladder has some good tips for keeping fit while injured. [...]
Great post! Too often we think that an injury, however “minor”, has to sideline us completely – and that is so not true. There are generally ways to work around.
Very timely, too – I’m “working around” a neck injury right now.
V.
It is seriously “old school”, but isometric training is an effective tool when you are laid up with an injury.
As well, there is research that shows that for people with an immobilized limb (broken arm in a cast), training the ‘good’ limb can actually affect the injured one.
Strange but true
[...] as I would like (the ankle just won’t heal as fast as I would like it to), I need to focus on staying fit while injured and snacking without ruining my [...]
I’ve been injured so many times, but in high school getting back into shape is a breeze with sports and coaches acting like personal trainers.
Now that the free motivation is gone, I try to do some extra workouts to strenghthen areas around my knees and ankles (where I get hurt the most). It may seem silly, but I actually work out harder and longer knowing that it may prevent me from getting hurt.
I recently strained a hamstring weeks before I had to do a sprint. I asked runners and other fitness buffs for advice, and I consulted the Internet. I was able to find a number of alternatives: swimming, running in the pool, exercise bike, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask what you can do. And, as the article noted, use the time to evaluate what went wrong. I realize now that I need much more flexibility, so I’ve been focusing on stretching.
Great information. I used to do nothing at all when I was injured in fear of hurting or sustaining my injury even further. While this might be true to a degree, resting the injured part of your body and doing some kind of activity CAN be beneficial. I’ve noticed that it can even speed up the recovery.
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